A Sydney start-up backed with $27 million from the likes of Sequoia Capital and Blackbird Ventures aims to become the "eyes" of the world's autonomous vehicles.

Baraja has taken the type of telecommunications-grade laser that powers the internet and applied it to the light detection and ranging system (LiDAR) that measures the distance of surrounding objects for driverless cars.

Baraja's two founders, Federico Collarte and Cibby Pulikkaseril, previously worked in the optical instrumentation group at Finisar Australia, itself a rare example of a successful local hardware company, having been bought by what is now Finisar's US business for $43 million in 2006.

The lasers they worked with at Finisar are capable of changing colour in the infrared spectrum, as opposed to the visible spectrum.

So when white light is refracted through the prisms inside the four sensors mounted on vehicles in Baraja's system, the unique angle at which they exit will communicate unique shades via fibre-optic connection to the processor located inside the vehicle.

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The founders claim this produces a highly accurate picture of the distance and reflectivity of surrounding objects, with the laser able to be automatically "tuned" to change resolution and focal points as required.

Traditional LiDAR systems from companies like Velodyne sit atop vehicles and rotate while shooting out lasers, or use moving mirrors to steer the light, Mr Collarte explained.

​"That means all your expensive electronics, lasers and receivers are exposed to the elements, constant vibration and the risk of being destroyed in a crash," Mr Collarte said.

Achilles heel

While top-mounted spinning LiDAR units cost about $70,000, he claimed Baraja's cost a fraction of that because they used only off-the-shelf components, such as the silica glass found in every smartphone camera.

Baraja's product, which it's named Spectrum-Scan LiDAR, also solved the problem of signal disruption when several driverless cars were near each other firing out laser in all directions, Mr Pulikkaseril claimed.

"You would need another signal travelling at the exact same angle and colour for there to be any interference, so there's a natural immunity against the noise you get with traditional LiDAR," he claimed.

The lack of a sufficiently cheap and accurate LiDAR system had been the "Achilles heel" in the development of driverless cars, according to Blackbird Ventures partner Rick Baker.

However, Baraja had been delivering prototypes of its system to autonomous car manufacturers for the last 12 months, including to fellow Blackbird investee Zoox, and Mr Baker was confident the Spectrum-Scan LiDAR system would be built into the chassis of some driverless models.

"We have the opportunity to become the standard for the entire industry," Mr Collarte said.

The start-up moved out of Mr Collarte's Lane Cove garage in 2015 to a tenancy at the CSIRO's campus at Lindfield, in Sydney's north.

"It's been valuable to the CSIRO to learn what a start-up with rocketship trajectory looks like," Mr Pulikkaseril said, adding Baraja's headcount was now at 60 from 25 in December.

The CSIRO's Innovation Fund, managed by Main Sequence Ventures, is among holders of the $21.3 million in paid Series A preference shares backing Baraja according to its regulatory filings. A further $5.6 million has been paid for seed preference shares.